


bless this mess doesn't quite cut it

by r1ker



Category: The Nice Guys (2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6916882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r1ker/pseuds/r1ker





	bless this mess doesn't quite cut it

After the director of the Department of Justice is squared away, Jackson figures they should celebrate. They can, they ought to, and so they do. That evening he calls Holland, tells him not to make any plans past that moment, because they were drinking to commemorate the Nice Guys' first successful case.

 

Jackson swings by his usual liquor place and grabs a few cases of things he couldn't hope to spell even sober. He hopes it'll be enough to hold them over for the last remaining hours of the night (a quick glance at his wristwatch reveals the time to be just past rush hour, easily within the socially acceptable time to get wasted with your PI partner).

 

Holland is waiting for him on what's left of his front step when he gets there. Jackson can tell in an instant he's begun pregaming for the night's festivities, blinking a little bit slower and not as quick to return Jackson's handshake when it is so proffered to him. Steering Holland back into his home by a hand on his lower back Jackson pulls the door to behind him.

 

"Where's Holly?" Jackson asks the instant he's not greeted upon entering the house by the young girl.

 

"At that friend of her's, Jessica's, house," Holland mumbles, going into the kitchen for glasses. Jackson can hear dishes and doors clattering and slamming nearby, along with a proposal on Holland's part to compensate Jessica's parents and the girl herself greatly for their services in being an outlet for his daughter.

 

Jackson accepts his glass, noting with his own complement at the ice slowly melting within it, and pops the first of many bottles of champagne open to come. Holland receives the first dregs of liquor from the fine green bottle. "$75 a bottle and I got four. How's that for the first successful case?"

 

"Very nice, very, very nice," Holland complements after more than his fair share of long sips. He finishes his glass and settles back against the couch, watching Jackson drink his glasses of champagne leisurely. After a while he begins to fidget, searching around the room with anything to preoccupy himself with other than talking. "If I go out and find us weed, do you wanna smoke?"

 

"Hell, yes," Jackson answers without not a moment's hesitation. It's been years since he's smoked anything heavier than a cigar as thick as his arm, but he's never been one to pass up a quality joint. And, as far as he was concerned and with as little knowledge as he had about the weed passing hands on the streets of Los Angeles, there was always room in the evening with a joint or two.

 

Holland leaves for only a second and in that time Jackson preoccupies himself with walking the expanse of the den. On mantles and end tables he's met with pictures of the ever-picturesque Marches, first a young husband and wife with arms entwined at what looked like a fairytale wedding. He'd remembered Holland mentioning the wedding in passing conversations, how both families were more than apt to foot the bill for the little shindig somewhere in London, where she was from. Jackson can't hold back the laugh he lets out when the pictures pass graciously from a marriage to a honeymoon somewhere with sun and indigenous trees, the birth of the first and only child the two of them would ever have.

 

Jackson doesn't think he's ever seen something so fitting as the picture of Holland holding a newborn Holly, both of them in a place well-lit with sunlight to where Holland's hair, the white of the baby's blanket are whited out. Even with the high exposure on the worn picture Jackson can see the radiant smile only possessed by a first-time father.

 

At that he pours himself another glass of champagne, and another after that, until soon the first bottle is gone and he's well on his way into the second as he moves on down the line that is Holland's memory lane.

 

Part of him thinks he missed out on settling down, finding someone who'd make him a father. He was the baby so there was never any chance of him to be around any younger kids that were related to him. The ones he did know, kids he played with around the neighborhood, looked to him for the protection one would expect out of a father, and even then in his young age that seemed to be enough.

 

The pictures go on from year to year it seems, and Jackson watches the young woman previously glowing in her hospital bed with a baby in her arms fade away. She becomes more aged in that her pictures are only of her past, never the future she missed out on with her husband and her daughter.

 

However, the happiness doesn’t stop for a second. Scenes pass of a dad sending his daughter to her first day of kindergarten, a school play where she seems to be playing a charming clownfish with a sequined set of gills, a family photo where they both lie in a truck bed with its door down, black sunglasses over their eyes. Holland's smile is almost as blinding as his daughter, and Jackson figures that if he gets a spare second in his night, he'll asked for a wallet-sized picture of this one.

 

Far be it from him to like a nice picture.

 

Holland comes through the front door whistling a few seconds after that, a series of brown paper bags rolled up and stuffed beneath his arm. Jackson backs away from the mementos of his partner's past and joins him around the coffee table as the two unravel what appears to be a healthy amount of marijuana and accompanying wrapping papers.

 

Jackson can tell the minute the plastic bag containing most of the weed is opened that this wasn't a cheap gram snagged from a high schooler on a street corner looking to make a quick buck. He snickers when Holland leans in to take a whiff of it, working quickly to arrange himself and Jackson a paper with a neat line of it in the center of each. "Fuck me this was worth $300."

 

"$300, are you out of your fucking mind?" Jackson blurts out only to have Holland start laughing. Something gets mumbled about _they have money to do frivolous shit like this now_ and Jackson can't help but roll his eyes. He accepts the blunt handed to him, flicks the lighter in his pocket open and holds the reel long enough to let a flame burst forward to light the both of them up. And they smoke.

 

From the first hit Jackson knows he isn't going to last long. It was packed full enough as it is to let the first drag hit him square in the gut like it was his first time smoking. Still he puffs away on it, taps it out in an empty beer can on the coffee table. He can't help but watch Holland smoke, trying all sorts of tricks with his inhalation. Holland lets the smoke curl out of his mouth only to have it come up to his nose, and back out again.

 

Right now, even as he is midway through a joint sized large enough to have an elephant floating high in the sky, Jackson wants to kiss every last puff of it from his lungs. The man's got a mouth that seems to be made to smoke, to kiss and to talk until he's blue in the face. Jackson figures that tonight he'll go for the second option.

 

So he tries.

 

It's barely a pass of their lips against the other's, in no way as strategic and focused as a kiss. Still Holland reciprocates, pulls back long enough to take a strong drag from his joint to lean back in, lets the weed burn deep in his lungs before leaning back again, lets the cloud of smoke swirl between their mouths. He makes the most spectacular noise when Jackson indulges them both, kisses him with a bit more of an edge than the first time.

 

"God, how old are you, seventeen," Holland laughs airily when Jackson moves down, shoves away his sports jacket, his collared shirt to get at his neck and shoulders. When Jackson bites down a little too hard he can hear Holland choke on a bubble of air in his lungs. "Nope, definitely not seventeen." He pulls Jackson back up to him at that and again silently requests his mouth, a demand easily granted under the guise of alcohol and weed.

 

And perhaps some undisclosed feelings on Jackson's begrudging behalf.

 

"No, I am most certainly approaching my fifties," Jackson confesses with his tongue and teeth sucking dented bruises into Holland's skin. "Doesn't bother you that I'm sixteen years older than you are?" He looks up to see Holland deep in thought.

 

Not that an age difference seems to bother him much at all. Holland's own parents were eleven years apart but he still wants to know a little bit more about his partner before he delves into something he knows from familial experience. So he lets Jackson rest his head on his collarbone, looks down at him as he finds somewhere in his mind to begin speaking. God, like it's a first date.

 

"When were you married?" Jackson asks him, hoping to God he didn't strike a nerve. He doesn't by the way Holland regards him with a gaze softened by reminders of the past (and the weed and alcohol didn't hurt, either).

 

Holland keeps a hand on Jackson's back to keep him in place where he is. "I was seventeen and an idiot. And we both found out first hand a year later that marriage licenses really aren't a joke in Vegas. But we did it again, with both of our families there so she could feel better about impulse-marrying her high school sweetheart in Vegas."

 

Holland laughs at the last part, thinking about how his wife had worried herself into a tizzy when thinking about how she had denied her mother the fairytale wedding. It wasn't quite so fairytale in Los Angeles County but it was just enough so that her father wouldn’t entirely hate him. He didn't.

 

"And Holly?"

 

He takes a drag of his joint, pulling away so that the smoke and ashes wouldn't drift too close to Jackson's hair. "Nine months and three days later. She's named after me, you know. Mary thought she'd be the wise guy in the marriage and took the birth certificate away when I wasn't looking. Ha ha, my daughter is named after her father. It's 'Holly,' though, on her birth certificate. Don't sweat it."

 

Jackson laughs, accepts a drag off of Holland's joint when it's unearthed his has gone to smolder away on top of the beer can. It's just long enough to have Holland kissing him one more time. "Good being a dad, isn't it?"

 

He's met with a genuinely gratified smile. "The very best thing that will ever happen to me. Getting two cans in one vending machine doesn't equate to being called Dad. Seriously, the minute I held that little person that I knew would be my friend no matter what I did, would look up to me for everything…that was it."

 

With that the mood shifts ever so slightly as Holland reflects for just a second on the life no longer containing his wife. "I wish she was here to see it. God, she loved being a mom just as much as I loved being a dad. We were both scared shitless of Holly at first, I'm not going to lie to you. You ever been stared down by a ten-pound crapping being who also drools at completely inopportune times? Neither had I up until that point." Jackson feels his resounding sigh at the end of that lament and knows from then on that the rest of the night is bound to take another turn.

 

"She was nine when we lost the house, her mom. We were asleep one night, Holly in her room doing whatever a nine year old girl does when she can't sleep. And I didn't smell the furnace in the living room start to leak. I had just woken up to go to the bathroom when the fire broke out. It started out pretty slow but caught up to the rest of the house and it almost knocked me down on my way to the bathroom. I had just enough time to grab Holly and get the hell out of the house before I realized…Mary wasn't behind me. She wasn't grabbing the valuables. She wasn't getting my wallet, her purse, Holly's blanket she wouldn't go a night without sleeping about. The fire marshal went in after they took an hour trying to put out the flames and found her still in the bedroom against the door. Her nightgown had polyester in it, glued her right to the door." His voice breaks and Jackson has an apology on the tip of his tongue in an instant. "I was standing outside with our daughter, holding Holly's hand for dear life, and my wife was inside burning to death."

 

Jackson looks up in enough time to watch Holland's face shatter at the edges, the fractioning of a well-formed wall race under the influence of booze and drugs. He rocks forward with Holland's resounding sob. Pulling himself off of Holland he helps him into a loose hug.

 

His arm is slung around Holland's neck. "God forgive me, Jackson, I couldn't smell the fucking furnace leaking. She'd told me a few days earlier to check it out but I couldn't find out where it was leaking. I had a number set aside to call later that day." Jackson knows the road of blame too well for someone in his profession so he gets to work letting Holland know previous faults are not to blame in this.

 

"You didn't know any better," Jackson sighs as Holland cries, head now pillowed against Jackson's shoulder. "Oh, you didn't know any better. Can't blame yourself for that when you couldn't help it." He starts to ease Holland off of him and onto a nearby pillow, letting him recline on the couch as he rises to fetch a washcloth.

 

Jackson comes back with a wad of damp paper towels, holds them to Holland's teary face. "Wipe your face for me. You're going to be alright." Holland doesn't nod or offer any sort of rebuttal to something he knows full and well to be true, for in this moment his mind reminds him of everything alcohol was working splendidly to cover up. Jackson feels him shaking and instantly regrets the trip to the liquor store.

 

"And I don't have that house anymore," Holland continues to cry even as his face is hidden by the paper towels. "I'm here in this piece of shit house and my child has to eat her meals around broken glass and bullet holes!" God, Jackson feels like _shit_. Instantly he wants to give everything to Holland and more, make up for mistakes none of them had a hand in making.

 

From that moment on, as he tidies Holland up and puts him to bed with the promise that he'll be there in the morning to break both of their expected and hellacious hangovers with pancakes, he makes himself a promise. Holland is getting more out of this job than a paycheck. He's getting what he's earned by losing so much more than just a house.

 

So, Jackson gets to work. He finds out what the land is worth that the March family home once sat on. It comes out to a respectable $35,000 and wouldn't luck have it. Jackson's got about that much plus a little extra for tilling fees in the bank in order to bring someone in to fix up the land after it was scorched. He makes cuts in his daily life where he can, spends more than his fair share making sure his own place is kept up long enough to have this new one built.

 

He also gets Holly in on the job. She's instantly overcome with excitement knowing that her beloved home is on the mend again by way of a friend she never thought to make showing generosity far beyond her expectations. Holly wants to help as much as she can so Jackson gives her a task. Bring over as much as she can tote of Holland's possessions once the house is up and stable, which comes out to be about four months later.

 

The last of his clothes are brought over and as she sets them down in the backseat of Jackson's car she sighs, "You know you have to tell him he has a house waiting for him, don't you?" Jackson nods. He knows full and well that time's got to come sooner or later, but he has a plan, much like he always has.

 

Going to the closest hardware store he has a second key made the second the land developers give him the master one, in the confidence that the house has been made as close as it ever will be to its previous one. Jackson holds it tight in his hand, slipping the clone into a white envelope for Holland. Then he calls Holly once he's at a place to stop. He tells her to get her dad ready, because today is the day he comes home for real.

 

Jackson knocks on the door to what will soon become a part of their past. He waits for Holland to greet him then gently lowers himself to his knees in a gesture he can only described as overwhelmed. Never one for holding a secret for long, let alone for four months, he can't stop the way he takes in a deep breath as he hands over the envelope to Holland.

 

"357 West Van Nuys," Jackson looks up at him to say, watching Holland undo the seal to the envelope and slowly withdraw the key from inside. "Bought it for 35 grand when you weren't looking. Turned it into something you could come home to." Holland's face breaks and he too can't help but hold the key tight between his fingers, bending down to wrap Jackson in a lopsided, but overwhelmingly thankful, embrace.

 

"Thank you," Holland repeats as Jackson eases them both upright into something more respectable and less possible to snap their spines in two. Holly joins in on it too, throwing her arms around both of their waists. After that Jackson hurries them both to the car and to the house. They've got business to take care of.

 

When they get there Holland almost jumps out of the car before Jackson's had a chance to park it along the fresh sidewalk. Jackson goes to the other side to open the door for him. Least he could do after throwing a (blessing of a) wrench in the plan. He steps out of the way and allows Holland to be the first to unlock the door.

 

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Holland babbles as he makes his way to and from rooms in the front of the house, Jackson close on his heels to get the first of many bits of feedback on the layout. Jackson tried his best to have it pretty close to what it was before, within the range of regulation codes. "Holly's gone, didn't you notice?" Jackson looks behind them and indeed she is, off to explore her room. "God, I bet she's in heaven. I don't know if I can ever repay you, Jackson, and I-" Jackson cuts him off. Too much talking. He kisses Holland at that and dips him back a little with one hand close enough to the nape of his neck to wind in his hair. Holland is taken back just enough to have Jackson deepen the gesture, and from then on he's fully engrossed in wrapping himself firmly around Jackson.

 

When an _ooh_ of discovery only a fourteen-year-old girl could have sounds off from the doorway the two split apart. Holly snickers at them from the doorway and Holland steals just one more kiss from Jackson until he lets his daughter lead him by the hand to show off her room. Jackson takes himself around the house like he hasn't done so many times before, watching it go from walls and beams to…this. Even down to the damn tile in the dining room he knows he's done good.

 

A little while later, when the buzz has settled down and Holly has gone off to Jessica's house to celebrate with her friend, they sit on the front step of the house. Holland keeps one shoulder pressed close to Jackson's, looking up at him as his partner smokes. "I just realized something."

 

Jackson grinds out the stub of his cigarette on his boot heel to avoid tarnishing the fresh cobblestone lining the walkway into the house. "Hmm?"

 

"New house, new digs," Holland comments as he looks around behind him. "And you didn't carry me over the threshold. You'd think that a person who'd done all he could to make a new house for someone would at least help them over the doorstep and into the house." For a fleeting second Jackson thinks that the paint on the walls wasn't dry and let a few fumes waft into his partner's head. Then he realizes it's just Holland, just the way he thinks.

 

"Oh yeah? Stand up." Holland starts laughing and maybe Jackson's stomach flips a little at the sight of his genuine mirth. "No, I'm serious, on your feet, March." Holland obeys with hands raised in surrender, soon raised in alarm as Jackson literally sweeps him off of his feet.

 

"You drop me, I'll kill you!" Holland almost yells dangerously close to Jackson's ear as he's moved swiftly into his bedroom. He manages to squirm out of Jackson's hold just as soon as he's close and safe to land in the middle of his bed. _New sheets, new sheets, new sheets_ is what his brain screams at him as he hits soft down comforter. Part of his sigh when he relaxes on the bed is due to the ambiance and the other half is the way Jackson sinks down next to him as if this place was forged with him in mind as well.

 

"You can stay, you know," Holland says, turning his head to speak to Jackson more intimately than the two have in months. "Holly likes you over. Nags me when you're not. We'll tease our hair and try not to let the 'rents know we're streaming dirty movies on pay-per-view." Jackson doesn't think he's ever admired someone so much in his life. And perhaps the least expected, as well.

 

"I think I will, if that's alright with the Marches," and when he sinks down to kiss Holland again they dare don't resurface until the next morning. Jackson sleeps better than he ever could have dreamed of on the Murphy bed in his apartment, finds out firsthand Holland's the clingiest fucking sleeper. And knows then and there this is something he could get used to.

 

Holly returns from Jessica's early the next morning, slipping in through the sliding glass door opening the kitchen up to light pouring in from the rising sun. There she finds Jackson in his boxers ( _are those hearts?_ He's never searched for a bathrobe so quickly in his life) with bacon sizzling on the eye of the stove. She laughs when he scrambles away for a robe of Holland's, and sits down to the table in her new home.


End file.
